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Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Our latest findings show that although all five trust and confidence indicators have remained positive, compared to two months ago, people's trust in the HKSAR Government has plunged by 16 percentage points, while their trust in the Central Government has also dropped significantly by 7 percentage points. People's trust level for the two governments now stands at around the same level as when Donald Tsang became CE last year. On the other hand, however, people's confidence in China's future has slightly increased by 4 percentage points, while their confidence in Hong Kong's future and in 'one country, two systems' have not changed much. Since we did not ask respondents to give reasons to their answers, we can only guess from what have happened lately. To us, it seems that recent incidents of food poisoning, the trial of Ching Cheong, and discussions revolving around the Election Committee Subsector Elections, may all have affected people's trust in the two governments."
News about POP
POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday afternoon via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the next 7 days. According to schedule, our next release of regular survey findings will be December 19, 2006, Tuesday, between 1pm to 2 pm, when the latest results of people's opinions towards Taiwan issues will be released. Then, on December 21, 2006, Thursday, between 1pm to 2 pm, we will release the latest findings of people's opinions towards ethnic identity.
Our general practice is to answer all questions on the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site as soon as we receive them, but we will not further comment on the findings. We welcome questions for follow-up purpose, please email them to us at . We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.
Starting from January 2006, we have included in our regular press releases a small educational section for the purpose of general civic education, so that we can share our experience with the general public. The subject of our education section today is "About HKUPOP".
About HKUPOP
Mapping people's trust and satisfaction of different governments
One important aspect of opinion polling around the world is to monitor people's trust and satisfaction of the government. Shortly after HKUPOP was established, we started to conduct surveys on these aspects. Regarding the development of our surveys on people's trust in different governments, we have explained it in our press release of August 22, 2006. As regards the development of our surveys on people's satisfaction with the SAR Government, we have also explained it in our press release of November 28. Today, after some nominal editing, we piece the two together in order to give readers a more comprehensive picture of such developments.
(1) Mapping people's trust in different governments
- Due to Hong Kong's very special political status, before the handover in 1997, our survey covered people's trust in the British Hong Kong, British, Chinese, and Taiwan Governments. After the handover, the survey method remained unchanged, but the term British Hong Kong Government was substituted by HKSAR Government, and Chinese Government was substituted by Central Government, while our survey on people's trust in the British Government stopped.
- Our surveys began in December 1992, the wordings used in the questionnaire being "On the whole, do you trust such and such government?" Surveys were conducted once a month, until October 1997 when it was changed to once every two months. It has remained unchanged since then.
(2) Mapping people's satisfaction with the government
- In December 1992, we started to survey people's trust in the British Hong Kong, British, Chinese, and Taiwan Governments. These surveys continued after the handover, but we expanded their scope by introducing people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government. We take measurements as frequently as we could, using our limited resources. Besides people's general satisfaction with the HKSAR Government, our survey also includes indicators on the government's performance in maintaining economic prosperity, improving people's livelihood, pace of democratic development, and so on.
- Our surveys on people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government in general began in July 1997. Since then, it has been conducted once every month. The wordings used in the questionnaire being "Are you satisfied with the overall performance of the HKSAR Government?"
Before May 2000, the sample size of our regular surveys was set at slightly over 500, we increased it to at least 1,000 after that. The above surveys are no exceptions. The findings of these surveys are now published regularly on-line at our HKU POP Site, while all previous findings published via our newsletter POP Express have also been uploaded on-line in various formats.
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